Sunday, September 20, 2009

Countdown to destruction at French migrant camp

CALAIS, France (Map, News) - Hijrat Hotak's parents sold the family home in Afghanistan, paying a smuggler $15,000 (euro10,200.61) to help buy a bright future in Britain for their 15-year-old son.

Instead, after a long, perilous journey, he lives in "The Jungle," a squalid encampment in Calais where Hotak and hundreds of other hungry migrants nourish dreams of sneaking across the English Channel.

And even that will not last.

Hotak's humble shelter here will be gone within days, when the camp will be razed by French authorities who see it as a public-health nightmare, a haven for human traffickers and a point of contention with the British, who want the border to their country better sealed.